Young people need a living wage!

AFTER LEAVING school at 16 I wanted to carry on my education. But I
realised that my family cannot afford to pay me what I needed for living
and studying, so I went for a job. I found myself working in a big pizza
shop as a dish-washer.

Rozh Pavilov, Hull Socialist Party

I was getting £3 an hour because I was under 18. I did the same as a
19 year old dish-washer could do but I didn’t get the same wages.

After five days working I cut my palm with a knife. I stopped working
for a bit because my hand was bleeding. There wasn’t any proper first
aid and they just wanted me to carry on working. But it wasn’t just me
who got treated badly because the bosses had a bad day and it wasn’t
just me who had bad working conditions.

All workers there had similar conditions, but at that time none of us
knew about trade unions and how we could stand up for our rights at
work. Now in this summer holiday, many young people are full-time
workers on these types of jobs and having bad working conditions and low
pay.

The best question to ask ourselves is "what we can do about it"? We
need to join a union and organise among other workers to stand up for
our rights. Look at wages for workers of 18 and above, it is only £4.25.
A minimum wage for adult workers is only £5.05. None of these are living
wages.

It’s poverty pay that workers are forced to live on under New Labour.
It’s capitalism which makes this big gap of inequality and puts profit
before people’s interests. Profit for the few and poverty for the
majority is the major force for this economic system of capitalism.

When we finished work, the bosses put £1,000 to £1,300 in their
pockets every night but paid us poverty wages. That’s why International
Socialist Resistance (ISR) and Socialist Party are fighting for the
unions to take immediate action to implement their current minimum wage
demands, as a step towards a legal minimum of £8 an hour.

ISR are calling a weekend of action on 15-16 July to fight for equal
pay for equal work and also for a wage that allows workers the decent
standard of living that we deserve for our hard work.